And Reilly, I am fairly certain that ESPN was well aware of the steroid issue and the mountain of evidence against Bonds when it gleefully covered his assault on the career home run record with its nightly "Chasing Aaron" ticker, so fark you and the sanctimonious horse you rode in on.

Nabb1:And Reilly, I am fairly certain that ESPN was well aware of the steroid issue and the mountain of evidence against Bonds when it gleefully covered his assault on the career home run record with its nightly "Chasing Aaron" ticker, so fark you and the sanctimonious horse you rode in on.

I read this on the train yesterday, and at the end of the column was a section with Facebook comments. That section appears to have gone missing, which I'm sure has NOTHING to do with the fact that everyone was remarking what an insufferable idiot Reilly is. Certainly there's no way he'd throw a shiat fit about something like THAT, right?

Nabb1:And Reilly, I am fairly certain that ESPN was well aware of the steroid issue and the mountain of evidence against Bonds when it gleefully covered his assault on the career home run record with its nightly "Chasing Aaron" ticker, so fark you and the sanctimonious horse you rode in on.

To be fair, Reilly wasn't with ESPN then.

Also, he's not wrong. He might be an "insufferable twit" but when your record is built on the backs of cheaters and that record gets you into the Hall of Fame it's certainly valid to question why that is a just result. That said, I don't care about the steroid issue, it was, is, and always will be a choice. The argument against it is that it kept "honest" players out of the major leagues, right? Well, there's no inherent right to a baseball career.

Oooh! Oooh! Can I join in the Rick Reilly hate, too? I see his articles linked anywhere, and I don't read. And, seriously...he used to be good. I need that "didn't read...lol" elevator gif that I've seen here. It fits perfectly for this post.

As it is, unless LaRussa was holding down McGwire and Canseco with his bare hands while jamming needles into their collective asses, I don't think he should be shunned from the HOF. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Adolf Oliver Nipples:Nabb1: And Reilly, I am fairly certain that ESPN was well aware of the steroid issue and the mountain of evidence against Bonds when it gleefully covered his assault on the career home run record with its nightly "Chasing Aaron" ticker, so fark you and the sanctimonious horse you rode in on.

To be fair, Reilly wasn't with ESPN then.

Also, he's not wrong. He might be an "insufferable twit" but when your record is built on the backs of cheaters and that record gets you into the Hall of Fame it's certainly valid to question why that is a just result. That said, I don't care about the steroid issue, it was, is, and always will be a choice. The argument against it is that it kept "honest" players out of the major leagues, right? Well, there's no inherent right to a baseball career.

He was still been a sports writer for a couple decades and he ignored all of it then so fark him.

Adolf Oliver Nipples:Nabb1: And Reilly, I am fairly certain that ESPN was well aware of the steroid issue and the mountain of evidence against Bonds when it gleefully covered his assault on the career home run record with its nightly "Chasing Aaron" ticker, so fark you and the sanctimonious horse you rode in on.

To be fair, Reilly wasn't with ESPN then.

Also, he's not wrong. He might be an "insufferable twit" but when your record is built on the backs of cheaters and that record gets you into the Hall of Fame it's certainly valid to question why that is a just result. That said, I don't care about the steroid issue, it was, is, and always will be a choice. The argument against it is that it kept "honest" players out of the major leagues, right? Well, there's no inherent right to a baseball career.

Was there a manager at the time who didn't have a bunch of juicers on his team?

When the Simpsons can do an entire musical about steroids in baseball, it's pretty clear everyone knew what was going on and didn't want to ruin it for everybody.

A memo circulated in 1991 by baseball commissioner Fay Vincent said, "The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited ... [and those players involved] are subject to discipline by the Commissioner and risk permanent expulsion from the game.... This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids..."

Yeah, I don't think LaRussa should've been a unanimous choice. Joe Torre benefitted from Steinbrenner spending whatever it took, so I question him going in unanimously. Bobby Cox barely deserves going in unanimously because he had the best pitching staff of the 90s, so efficient that you could set your watch to them.

Yep. The sad thing is that he used to be a great writer back in the day.

Honestly...that was probably the best piece of commentary he has thrown together for ESPN.

Even though it read like the person who wrote it was drinking heavily.

Which at this point, I couldn't blame him for doing.

All of the Reilly bashing aside, the guy does have a point. If anyone thinks that these managers had no idea what was going on in their clubhouse, they are boxer shorts on head retarded. I hold no opinion either way honestly.

At a time in sports where big numbers equal big dollars, you'd be a moron not to enhance your performance if you could get away with it. Especially baseball with their stats driven culture and at the time, draconian testing laws.

It is what it is, but if Bonds and the rest of the so-called "a-holes" are kept out of the HOF, these weasly do no wrong managers should be held to the same accord.

Can't stand Reilly, and DNTFA, but there is no farking way Tony LaRussa should be in the hall of fame. The steroid era started and exploded under his direct watch. Jose Canseco said LaRussa knew what was going on, and while he is a self-serving douche out to make an easy dollar, he's also basically the only credible person on the issue, because everything he said was true. In addition, Tony LaRussa is a great manager and a certifiable genius intellect. It takes a huge suspension of disbelief for me to think LaRussa didn't know what his players were up to, and how he could best use that to his advantage.

Dirty numbers don't belong in baseball. The players who juiced don't belong, and the coaches and front office who let it slide don't belong either.

bluorangefyre:Yeah, I don't think LaRussa should've been a unanimous choice. Joe Torre benefitted from Steinbrenner spending whatever it took, so I question him going in unanimously. Bobby Cox barely deserves going in unanimously because he had the best pitching staff of the 90s, so efficient that you could set your watch to them.

That does tend to happen. Enough deep playoff runs happen with you at the helm, it kind of stops mattering to the voters how much you actually had to do with it. Bruce Bochy and Joe Maddon are probably going to have tougher times getting in when their turns come up even though they have a lot more to do with the success of their teams and have had a lot less to work with.

Nice hatchet job since Sheffield was in Atlanta for a short time and even if they were using at that time injections are not something you would do in a clubhouse.

And Melky was CLEARLY not using anything that could be called "performance enhancing" during his time in Atlanta.

So 2-3 years out of his 30+ years coaching means hes a bad coach unworthy of the HOF, the fact he took a notoriously bad franchise to a team people just hate and can only mock for losing in the playoffs instead of losing 100 games a year says hes worthy.

I think this is kind of like Canseco's book a few years ago. The article makes a semi decent point as its hard to be just a coincidence that these three coaches had 34 players that were accused and if we ignore records such as breaking the all time single season home run record broken by three separate players due to possibly cheating then it really should reflect on the manager since most of those wins were injected (since ped/steroids = insta superpowers).

On the other hand the messenger is part of the problem and a tool which makes it impossible to separate the two

frodofraggins:What an idiotic article. Managers just make the lineups. It's up to the league to do the policing.

This. And more importantly, the testing.

Players, with the possible exception of their pharmacists, are solely responsible for how they prepare for the rigors of a season. Managers fill out lineup cards, and make in-game adjustments, based on who is playing well. To pretend they should be involved (or accountable) with how a player prepares himself is absurd. That's between the player and the league, period.

So long as average performance results in multimillion dollarGUARANTEED contracts, a baseball player would be a fool to not employ every advantage modern pharmaceuticals offers to give him an edge over his peers, even if some are disallowed.

Sports are entertainment. Give us spectacle. Give them all PEDs. Let the teams hire chemists for designer drugs so fans will pay top dollar for the finished product (the show, not the drugs). Eliminate the competition between league and players and put the focus where it should be: between clubs.

TheShavingofOccam123:When the Simpsons can do an entire musical about steroids in baseball, it's pretty clear everyone knew what was going on and didn't want to ruin it for everybody.

This comes from a different episode.

Bart was on meds to make him behave and became paranoid that MLB was spying on everybody.I had never seen it til a few weeks ago and my only thought was "wow, if we only knew back then what we know now"

Maris might've even been on roids during '61. He balded pretty early for it to be from "stress" and it was the same time Mantle was juicing.

Which makes the indignant, how-could-they-rob-and-cheat-us, moral high horse stance that most baseball writers take even more ridiculous. The way the writers act about voting players into the hall is already about as pretentious and conceited as performance art anyway.

Maris might've even been on roids during '61. He balded pretty early for it to be from "stress" and it was the same time Mantle was juicing.

We have been over this again and again.....

You are wrong, no matter how many times you claim it to be the truth it is simply not true as you are stating. The drugs back then were simply not perfected as they were in the 80s-90s and did just as much harm as they did good. Most of the guys have went on record saying they only used greenies to get awake enough to play and they actually messed with your eyes where it made focusing hard to track the ball.

Quit acting like they some how were the same formula as those made today, its just a lie you keep repeating hoping that everyone will accept it as the truth.